A/N: So now that the movie will be released in the U.S. on Dec 15, I've found myself thinking about it again... I need to get reacquainted with the characterizations once I buy the film, but hopefully until then this chapter will not allow Landa or Bridget to become OOC!
Her breath coming in disturbingly loud uneven bursts, Bridget haltingly shifted her body towards the edge of the bed where Landa had fallen. Her face felt hot and overexerted; he must have crushed something in her throat for her to feel so very out of breath already. The struggle to breathe was not yet over.
It was then that she looked down upon Hans Landa, who was lying on his side, legs perfectly straight. Blood gushed from the wound on his thigh, a blackish bubble of it arising from the center of the wound, spilling over like a volcano and soaking his trousers. Around the wounded leg was an ever-growing crescent-shaped pool of dark crimson. She'd probably shot a major artery.
She cocked the weapon, hand shakily aiming over the edge of the bed. He had rolled far enough way that he would not be able to reach her pistol. The metallic thunk of the weapon cocking elicited a reaction from Landa, who after the initial flinch (or was it a shiver?), flipped onto his back with a pained grunt. His eyes were shut tightly, but within a moment they had opened and were looking right at her, heavy eyelids indicating to her his fearlessness. His mouth was twisted into a grimace, and each breath he expelled through his nose sounded as if it caused him pain.
Bridget watched his Adam's apple rise and fall as he swallowed loudly, the crescent of blood expanding outwards from his blood-soaked thigh. He was losing a lot of blood and would probably be dead soon, even if she didn't fire a second shot. How was she going to get the body out of the house unnoticed? She could barely breathe, let alone manage to lug a heavy body undetected by her neighbors.
Though he had initially looked directly and unflinchingly into her eyes, Landa's eyes soon wandered downwards almost self-consciously as he took several halting, strained breaths.
It was an odd picture: Bridget von Hammersmark, lying on the bed, her breathing loud and labored, gaping down at a bloodied Hans Landa flat on his back on the floor, his breathing also strained. The distant strains of another Mozart piece from the radio were all but completely buried beneath the sounds of their labored breathing, a word not passing between them.
Before Landa was to die either by blood loss or by a second gunshot, Bridget had to know something.
"Why were you in my bed?" she rasped in English, her voice frighteningly harsh, punctuated by choked breaths as she stared down at him. She had initially intended to speak in German, but there were fewer words to speak in English, and it was difficult simply to get enough air.
His eyes again moved to her face, and she decided that he didn't look so fearless any more. In light of the fact that he was dying, his arrogance was dying as well. His body was now subtly shaking, much like a violent shiver. Would he explain himself before he died?
"I changed my mind," he replied, voice barely above a whisper.
"About what?" She began fanning her face with her free hand, attempting to force some air into her mouth. It was as if she was still being strangled, though much more gradually, a noose tightening slowly around her throat.
"You."
Her face twisted with confusion.
"What?"
"Either end this—" he muttered, rolling his eyes, "or call a doctor."
"Why should I? I think you deserve to suffer," she hissed, gasping for breath, "for… all that you've done."
"You need a doctor."
She was taken aback. Did he not believe he needed a doctor as well? Why would he encourage her to call a doctor for herself? Perhaps he was under the assumption that he wasn't going to make it. But then, why the sudden empathy?
It was then that upon looking again at him, Bridget noticed a rather disfiguring scar on his forehead peeking out from under his differently-styled hair.
"Where'd you get that scar?" she rasped, momentarily lifting the pistol to enforce the question.
"That doesn't matter. How will you explain this?" he countered irritably, looking about himself, his breaths becoming shallower and shallower. "We both need—a doctor."
"As if you should live," she snarled. As soon as she ended speaking, she was overcome with an agonizingly painful coughing fit in which she clutched her neck, gasping for breath. Once her coughing spell had ended, he again spoke.
"Fine. But then, when they come for you, they'll find… this," he murmured, indicating his wound, his body. "Aren't you already in hiding?"
It was infuriating that he should remember every bit of every conversation they had shared. It figured—for a man to be a good listener, an amazing retainer of information and facts, he had to be a people hunter, a hired murderer. Had he a common job with no underlying evil intentions, his looks, charm, and information retention would have been the makings of the ultimate husband. But here he was, about to die and for good reason.
It was quite the dilemma he had pointed out to her. She was a wanted woman, one who had had to change her identity to avoid backlash from the very country she had been faithful to for years. If she should let him die here on her bedroom floor, she'd have to figure out some way of getting to the doctor, which itself demanded some sort of explanation—who had strangled her, and why? Likewise, a dead body would draw undue attention to her. Certainly the body would begin to reek after only a day or two, but how was she to move it, a pregnant woman in her second trimester with a pathologic new shortness of breath? She wouldn't be able to, especially if she wanted to do so without arousing suspicion—and even though she and her child might survive all this, she'd most likely live out her days in prison, having killed a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and World War II hero. Ugh, she wanted to spit at the vileness of the mere thought of him receiving an award for his cowardice.
Even so, she had no choice. He had to stay alive for the time being, if only to be taken outside of her home.
"A robber."
Bridget gaped down at Landa, whose face was as white as a sheet, his lips eerily pale and faded.
"What?"
"A robber… strangled you and shot me," he muttered, voice thick. "Do you have any… valuables?"
"Yes, just jewelry—rings and things, but—"
"We are married."
Her head spun until it felt like she'd lose consciousness. So essentially he was vindicating the both of their acts against the other in order to see a doctor. Her, pretending to be married to an opportunistic Nazi coward. It made her want to vomit.
"You need to make it look like a robbery. Hide some jewelry."
"Colonel Lan—"
He frowned at her, though his features showed a kind of strange peace about them.
"Hans. Please."
"No," she blurted, her voice stronger than before. "This is what got me discredited with the Allies: their believing I was with you. I'm not doing it."
"John then. Here," he said, reaching into his bloodsoaked trouser pocket and pulling out a thick square of leather, "—my wallet. Hide it. They won't know who I am. Just call them."
When she hesitated to move or accept his wallet, he spoke again, obviously agitated, his voice stronger though his face still frightfully pale.
"I think it's best you call them before I die, or else you'll have no way to explain this," he huffed. "You wouldn't want your child to grow up in an orphanage, ja?"
She couldn't help but roll her eyes at having to follow any kind of instruction from him. With her free hand she reluctantly took Landa's wallet, damp from blood, and slid towards the end of the bed, aiming the gun all the while.
Before he could ask her to call the doctor again, she picked up the handset of her phone and with the help of a nearby phonebook, used the rotary dial to ring the hospital.
As he lie on the floor, a trembling hand pressed against the gunshot wound, she painstakingly shuffled over to her jewelry box and opened it, sliding her fake wedding band on her finger and taking her expensive jewelry out to hide between her box spring and mattress. Her breaths became increasingly more ragged as she hid his wallet in a shoebox that she then stowed under her bed. For a moment she stood clutching her throat to catch her breath. It was as if her windpipe had been crushed to a third of its normal size and the ensuing sensation was utterly terrifying.
"Rest."
A frown appeared on her face at his request, and the urge to shoot the bastard on the floor became apparent once more.
"Don't you dare tell me what to do."
Still holding her pistol, her finger on the trigger guard, she stood at the end of her bed and peered down at him from a safe distance. He was alarmingly pale and breathing so shallowly now that she could not hear his breaths. Suddenly there was a knock at her door, which startled her from her looking at Landa.
"Hide the gun."
His voice sounded distant now, a soft, barely discernable murmur. Without delay she stowed the pistol in the shoebox with Landa's wallet then left the room to answer the door and to turn off the radio that was somehow now on the classical station.
Bridget was amazed at American hospitality. As she sat in a makeshift room in the emergency department of the hospital, a doctor prodding and examining her neck, she couldn't believe how fortunate she had been that due to their injuries, they were both taken from her home without question. The medical team had merely asked them of the extent of their injuries and quickly loaded the pair into an ambulance. The attending physician had heard her baby's strong, rapid heartbeat through a stethoscope. She couldn't help but smile at the thought that she and her baby would survive—and that Hans Landa would not, finally out of her life forever.
It was entirely possible that he wouldn't make it. Landa was faring far worse than she and had been wheeled away for surgery and a blood transfusion. She realized with glee that in his cleverness in faking their being husband and wife having been robbed by an outsider, that he'd neglected to consider that once he'd told his story to the paramedics, his life was expendable. No longer could Bridget be held responsible for his death—should he now die—because he himself had explained haltingly to the paramedics the convincing lie.
She had been asleep while sunbathing outside, he lying down in the bedroom, when the robber had held her at gunpoint, leading her into the house. This of course explained the presence of the broken sunglasses and heels lying in the grass, for in her shock she dropped and stepped on her sunglasses, leaving her heels on the lawn as the robber held a gun to her. The robber demanded to know where her jewelry was. In fear for him, her sleeping husband, in the bedroom—the room where she kept her jewelry—she refused to tell the robber the location of her jewelry. With that, he began to strangle her, pulling her towards the bedroom. They entered the room as the robber continued to strangle her until she lost consciousness. That was when he had awoken and was promptly shot in the leg. When she came to, she found him bleeding to death and her jewelry gone.
"Don't overexert yourself for the next week or two." The doctor's voice cut through her thoughts. "Your trachea and larynx are severely bruised and inflamed and for several days it's going to be difficult for you to breathe."
"So nothing's broken or collapsed?"
"Luckily, no. It's fortunate that tracheas are made of cartilage and not bone because the robber would have surely broken bones in your throat, as hard as he squeezed your neck. I think you should stay overnight just to ensure everything is going to be alright. It's probably best you aren't home tonight, lest the robber returns. So, would you be willing to stay overnight?"
"Yes," she muttered, completely relieved that her throat hadn't been broken in some way. Landa had certainly been ruthless in strangling her. From the state he had been in the last time she'd seen him, she wouldn't doubt if he saw his life flashing before his eyes, and hoped each scene to be more horrific than the last.
Please please please please please please review! Thanks again for your interest!